Tag Archives: desert

En el Desierto de Atacama

by jose

There is something timeless, something grander than the human notion of time, something beyond reach of the comprehension of mere animals in the crushing silence and vast expanse of the desert.

The stillness of everything — rocks, salt, lakes, even grass unmoving in the immobile air — is contagious. It gets at you. It starts with a nudging feeling, poking inside your mind, telling you something is abnormal in the surrounding environment. There is no sound at all, no chirping birds, no rustling leaves, no scurrying rodents. You slow down, and then you stop cycling altogether, as if moving in such a fixed landscape were insulting it.

That moment is the one you begin realizing the immensity, the infinite age, of the place you find yourself in.

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In the storm

by jose

I checked the time on my cellphone — I had forgotten to turn it off to save power. 2.52 am. I stayed on my back for a few moments, looking and listening around me. Ladina did not seem to be disturbed by any of it: she was fast asleep — and for the better, since not only had we woken up at 4.30 the previous morning to see the sunrise from the top of a dune, but she also would have to drive for the whole following day. My driving license was still stuck in a cargo plane somewhere between France and Hong Kong.

A gale, more powerful than the others, violently shook the tent. I thought I heard a line ripping outside. I really had to go out.

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Luxor, Upper Egypt

by jose

There is a reason if I travel. Or, I should say, there is a reason if we travel. Once I arrived in Egypt, I found I was not the only one who wanted to see things before I would die.

— What do you want?
— I wanna see beautiful places in Egypt before leaving it… I mean, I’m on a round-the-world trip. I can’t stay for too long in Sharm. I need to move.
— Yeah… Me too.

And so it was decided. Yes, it is the curse of the traveler to part from people they love, to put an end to beautiful things they just built up, to leave when everything in the world tell them to stay. Maybe not everything, actually.

Our passion for discovering the world and its wonders, our passion to jump into the unknown so that we can live our life to the fullest. Perhaps our fear of getting trapped in constraining bonds too. But, most of all, our dream of expressing both our freedom and our joy of living in this so, so beautiful world.

These are the reasons why we kept moving. And why I keep moving. Moving forward, without ever forgetting, but moving forward still.

Always forward, and never stopping, Inshallah.

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Jerusalem, Israel

by jose

— Crap, they dropped us in the middle of nowhere – we’re on the highway!
— I love it. This is freedom, Ant!

Freedom. This is the intense feeling that grasped me a few seconds after I jumped out of the minibus with my backpack between my arms, following the Donkeys that had just woken me up. I took a look around us, and yes, we were in the middle of nowhere, on the side of a highway, with no clue about where to head. We only knew we were in Jordan, somewhere not that far from the Dead Sea – we only had to find it.

Getting lost in a country you had not even thought you were going to, getting lost with your backpack on your back, getting lost with friends you basically just met but already know you are going to keep for your whole lifetime. Getting lost and decide to walk in the general direction you want to go to, with all the equipment you need, which means you never have to look back or go back to wherever you came from – simply walking in this breathtaking landscape, in this unknown territory, just because you heard that a place you need to see is somewhere ahead of you.

Welcome, freedom, this feeling I had never experienced before. Take a seat somewhere in my heart; I will keep it for you forever, so that you can come back and chill out here whenever you wish.

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Petra, Jordan

by jose

I used to hate taking pictures of people, and even more of myself. After all, if I am traveling, the purpose is mainly to discover places – not show my face with a changing background behind, as if to yell to the world “I have been there and not you, and look at me, I am smiling, I am happy.” Holy crap I hate tourists. No, what I prefer is to show my friends incredible landscapes and places. “C’mon guys, check this out, you have to come here and have fun with me, it is so awesome – travel more, it is worth it!”

It is worth it.

I used to hate taking pictures of people, until I met these guys, our travel group formed in Cairo and Dahab. Until I found that the ultimate happiness in traveling was the human adventure, the sharing, the joy of simply being with friends, doing things together, and sometimes facing hard times together. Let me thus introduce our happy Middle East party: the Donkeys.

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Dahab, Egypt

by jose

To be honest, I was not expecting anything like Dahab when I thought “I am going to Egypt.” Okay, actually I did not make any research on places worth a visit before taking off from Paris – no, I am not reckless, I just hate planning. Or at least I hate planning a round-the-world trip. No way I am going to do research for every single country I will visit. Too much effort and less pleasure in discovering unexpected places. And meeting unexpected people.

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